Practical Tips When Working with AI Coding Assistants

Background Modern AI coding assistants like Claude, GitHub Copilot, and ChatGPT can dramatically accelerate development. Recently, while working on a feature update, I had to modify an existing API to fetch data from a new system while maintaining backward compatibility. The migration was gradual. Some clients would continue using the old system for a while, while others would start using the new one. Because of that, the implementation had to support both behaviors during the transition period. Like many developers today, I used an AI coding assistant to speed up the implementation. At first, it seemed straightforward. But the process turned out to be more interesting than expected. The First Iteration Looked Correct… But Wasn't Ideal The AI-generated code worked functionally. It handled the new system integration, preserved backward compatibility, and integrated with the existing service. But after reviewing the code carefully, a few issues surfaced: Extra conditional branches that w